You have to install the jailbreak before you can telnet or ssh into your Kindle. ;debugOn works, but ~usbNetwork will do nothing until the jailbreak is run. I can't recall if at that point you can at least telnet in, or if the usbnet install is necessary. But if you're going to install the jailbreak, at that point you might as well run the usbnet update anyway.

1. If I jailbreak it includes an sshd so usbnet isn't required as I can just telnet / ssh straight in
2. lots of people have used this update

One more question - if something bad happens - lets say I apply the update then do something silly that causes the boot to fail after a reset - is there a factory default fs image that I can fall back on via a factory reset (which IIRC is 30 second power switch)? Or is it possible to brick this thing? I'm assuming the latter....

Also I'm a bit confused on what this hack relies upon. It seems the --ex switch is no longer used in kindle_update_tool.py so instead it simply overwrites /mnt/us/usbnet/bin/usbnetwork with the custom script in /test/bin/usbnetwork. So the tricky bit is in signing the files and bunde? Forgive me - I'm learning python and although it reads quite well and kindle_update_tool is well commented I may have misinterpreted this.

You must first install the jailbreak. This permits you to install packages that aren't signed by Amazon. Then you must install the usbnetwork package. The jailbreak doesn't contain an sshd server, or anything else, to my knowledge.

Ok - so if it's not signed how come just dropping it into the root directory and clicking update is accepted? Did they just not put any security checks on the update functionality? Or is it that an update run from this directory is only applied to a filesystem and the tar symlink breaks out to root?

Is it really just a case of marking the files as executable sees them run with access all areas?

Hi - ok I will scratch around again. I'm surprised nobody has documented this with a full explanation on a static web page. Most of the posts here are incomplete and so are the blogs I've found off this site. It would be a shame for this data to remain unseen by many who might use it to make further inroads into the kindle, given all the good work you and others have put in.

Please don't take this as a snipe because as I say the work done is great and also your code is well documented.

Hi - ok I will scratch around again. I'm surprised nobody has documented this with a full explanation on a static web page. Most of the posts here are incomplete and so are the blogs I've found off this site. It would be a shame for this data to remain unseen by many who might use it to make further inroads into the kindle, given all the good work you and others have put in.

If anybody really needs to know the precise process that the jailbreak update works then they can review the update itself and read the forum posts. It isn't complicated and should be easily understandable to anybody who has reasonable experience with *NIX. Questions are always welcomed here assuming you've put some amount of effort into trying to understand it yourself. No spoonfeeding :P

Once you've installed the jailbreak then you can install any other package you want. No need to reinvent the wheel by making your own variant of the same jailbreak.

Same problem here. Does anyone know another way to run commands directly from the k3?

You can try installing the test tools but you'll have to generate an update that does it or do it manually via SSH/USB network. I don't believe I've seen anybody mention that they've reinstalled the test tools onto a Kindle that didn't come with it though.